I watched the dark cool waters of the Lansing river run by. The occasional jogger passed by while cars crossed the overpass into the city proper. The situation with Marcus had gotten worse. He went from catatonic to wild mood swings. Not even Samara could calm him down. And he still had no idea who betrayed him.

Two figures approached from opposite directions. “Arthur? Where is Marcus?” asked the man to my left. He wore casual business attire, the same as any of the city or state government office workers would wear this time of year.

I pushed myself upright from the railing, tracking both men from the corner of my eyes, “Jeffrey, I should have known. Marcus ain’t here, and I wanted to talk to my dad, not you.”

“He is unavailable. Now where is Marcus?”

“Safe, for now,” I said. The man to my right wore a set of jogging clothes, dark with long sleeves and long pants, dark glasses and an oversize baseball cap. He marched toward me. Marched, not walked. “So it was you, wasn’t it Jeff.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“This was a long shot, but I figured whoever betrayed Marcus would not want him to return alive and tell my father or the other Guardians what happened. You know Jeff, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“Get him!”

I dropped a small cloth bag folded on my left hand. A torrent of angry wasps poured out of it the moment it hit the concrete. They fanned out and attacked both Jeff and his companion. Jeff panicked. The 0ther ignored them and broke into a run. I pulled one of my pistols and fired at it. With a flash but no sound, the heavy caliber pistol hit center mass. The earth golem collapsed in a heap of dust and tattered clothing. With his construct gone, Jeff’s concentration focused on the wasps. He created a bubble of fast moving air around him that kept them at bay.

Them but not me.

I rushed him and kneed him in the crotch. He folded but did not fall. I held him up by putting the barrel of my second pistol under his chin, “You got a lot of talking to do Jeff. Quick, before my trigger finger slips.”

Sweat streamed down his temple, “You can’t stop it. It took sometime to get the others in line, but there is no stopping it. We will rule again and the vermin will pay the price for their arrogance.”

“What the fuck are you talk–” a wave of water hit me in the back. It slammed both of us down to the pavement. He kicked me in the face and broke into a run. Sirens blared in the distance. Someone must have called 9-1-1. I pulled out my ghillie suit, took the clothes off the crumbled construct and hid in the woods. I waited an hour before cops left. Took me a couple more just to walk back to where I parked the car. I headed back to Mason as fast as the speed limit would allow.

Samara sat in the front porch, “Oh my god! What happened? You got blood all over your face!”

“I’m fine. Where is Marcus, I need to talk to him.”

Ricardo came around the back,”He’s gone man.”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“I went up to check on him and he was gone. But I found this,” he handed me a tablet. The browser showed an article from an Upper Peninsula news site about a fire.